Martinez's supporters start to bail out, poll finds

Iraq, immigration and slow fundraising make times tough for the GOP senator and RNC chair.

July 21, 2007|By Tamara Lytle, Chief Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON -- These are tough times for Mel Martinez.

In the past month, the Republican U.S. senator from Orlando has seen the collapse of an immigration-reform bill he helped craft. As chairman of the Republican National Committee, he has struggled to defend an unpopular president and an increasingly unpopular war, even as party fundraising lags.

And now a new Quinnipiac University poll shows him plunging to new lows in his home state. Indeed, more Florida voters -- 38 percent -- said they disapproved of Martinez's performance than the 36 percent who said they approved of it.

It's all a bit sobering for the normally ebullient Martinez, who came to Orlando as a 15-year-old Cuban refugee and has known nothing but success since.

"We're in a difficult time," he said earlier this week, reflecting on how Iraq and immigration reform have dragged down his president, his party and himself. "We are at a time of war, a difficult situation and without a real standard bearer for our future."

Martinez said he doesn't worry about polls -- his re-election campaign isn't until 2010, "too far away" for immediate concern. Still, the numbers are worrisome.

"He's awfully lucky he's not up until 2010," said political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. "He's more tied to Bush and the unpopular current administration than just about any senator."

In February, shortly after Bush handpicked him for the RNC job, Martinez had an approval rating of 48 percent in the Quinnipiac poll. It has gone steadily downward since.

"Anyone who takes the lead in representing a party on the ropes" is liable to take a short-term hit in popularity, said Al Cardenas, a friend of Martinez's who is a past chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. But, he said, the issues will be different by 2010: "Voters will want to side with someone with national clout."

Added another Martinez friend, conservative activist Ken Connor, "He's in the pressure cooker. But he's a very resilient guy."

The temperature in that pressure cooker is rising.

Last month, the immigration-reform bill that Martinez helped draft collapsed, with only 12 of the Senate's 49 Republicans voting for it in a key procedural vote. And this week, restive Republicans anguished over whether to stick with Bush on the Iraq war.

Ultimately, all but four GOP senators hung with their president, rejecting a bill setting a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq. Martinez is firmly in Bush's camp, arguing that no change in strategy should be made before a September progress report from the military brass.

"This is a time to depoliticize this. It's not a time for political stunts," Martinez argued. "It's a time for measured judgment when American soldiers have their lives on the line."

Others are less certain. Said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a bellwether moderate who voted for the troop pullout, "Everybody is struggling" about what to do, and as many as nine other Republican senators have expressed strong misgivings about the president's policies.

It's clear that fallout from the war and immigration reform is doing damage. As Republicans begin recruiting candidates to run for office next year, the party's public-approval ratings are plummeting. Worse, so is their fundraising.

In most years, the RNC and its senatorial and congressional committees enjoy a big fundraising edge over their Democratic counterparts. In the first five months of this year, though, the GOP committees have collected $75.8 million -- compared with $73.3 million raised by Democrats.

Martinez backers say he has the amiable personality and skills to hold his party together through the turbulence. But critics say he has not been very visible in his role of party chair and cheerleader-in-chief.

"I don't think he's been a power broker, a voice," said Robert Watson, director of American Studies at Lynn University in Boca Raton. "He's one of these guys who walks on the beach and doesn't leave footprints."

Connor, a friend of Martinez's for 40 years, said the former Orange County executive is the right person for the job because he's a consensus-builder. "He's good at getting people to yes," said Connor, a former Florida gubernatorial candidate.

The "yes" Republicans are looking for now is from top-quality potential candidates willing to run next year to give them a chance to win back control of the House and Senate. Critics and friends say the report card for Martinez's job will be based on how well Republicans do at the polls next year.

It's a tough test.

"You'd have to be crazy to run the way '08 looks right now, if you're a Republican," Sabato said. "If Iraq looks like this in '08, Republicans can kiss a lot of seats goodbye. This is as negative for the Republican Party as it's been since Watergate."

One of Martinez's jobs in the next few months will be to convince incumbent Republican senators and House members to run for re-election instead of retiring, which might look alluring to some of them who don't like having their party in the minority.

"If the election were held today, it would be an uphill climb, obviously," said David Johnson, a political consultant and former executive director of the Republican Party of Florida. "But we've still got 16 months before the election. So much can happen in that time."